Do you and your partner struggle with the same argument with little understanding from the other? Do you struggle in communicating your feelings or that your partner is not a good listener? Do you feel like your relationship is stagnant or at a standstill? Do you feel like you and your partner are disconnected and drifting away from one another? Do you desire more emotional and physical intimacy and connectedness between you and your partner?
Couples can learn skills to improve their relationship and to help make their relationship more connected, supportive, and resilient with just a little support, no matter how big or small the problem is. With couples therapy, you’ll learn how to communicate your feelings and needs and work together to get more of what you both want out of your relationship.
“To achieve a lasting loving bond, we have to be able to tune in to our deepest needs and longings and translate them into clear signals that help our lovers respond to us. We have to be able to accept love and to reciprocate.” ~ Dr. Sue Johnson from Hold Me Tight
Some issues that bring couples to therapy are:
- Addiction / partner addiction support
- Work, life, and family out of balance
- Blended families
- Chronic pain and illness
- Separation and divorce
- Conflict or disagreement with in-laws or extended family
- Disagreements about parenting, finances, etc.
- Infidelity / cheating / betrayal
- Lack of emotional intimacy or physical intimacy
- Issues with insecurity, commitment, emotional vulnerability, or rejection sensitivity
- Mental illness
- Deciding whether or not to live together or get married
- Use of pornography
- Sex and physical intimacy issues
In my couples therapy sessions, using a combination of Rational Emotive Behavioral Couples Therapy, the Gottman Method Couples Therapy, and Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) skills, training, and techniques, I help couples cultivate vulnerability, emotional safety, and emotional connection needed in their relationship; foster more emotional safety, trust, and respect with one another; build more emotional and relational resiliency within the partnership or marriage; and cultivate more fondness and friendship with one another so that they can repair and maintain sustaining love.
However, the following is only a partial list of potential issues or circumstances that would be contraindicated in couple’s therapy:
- Continuing to remain involved in an ongoing affair with someone outside of your relationship or marriage or engaging in some other active form of infidelity.
- Active addiction, including alcohol abuse, substance abuse, financial infidelity, compulsive sexual behavior, or problematic use of pornography.
- Domestic violence, abuse, or coercive control within the relationship, including verbal, emotional, financial, or sexual abuse, or patterns in which one partner is exerting power, control, intimidation, or dominance over the other.
In addition, couples therapy may be limited in effectiveness when either partner is withholding material information that substantially affects the treatment process or the relationship, such as one partner’s decision to separate or divorce during the couples therapy process.
If any of the above relate to you and your partner or spouse, contact me today for a free consultation so that I can speak with you about how I may be able to help.